Fairview Health, Minnesota – trip report

Wow, what a run… I have never filmed so many people in one day!! 16 Physician leaders at Fairview Health. As an entrepreneur this organization makes a lot of sense. Leaders and physicians alike see these turbulent times in healthcare as an opportunity to be part of the change instead of having it handed to them.

What makes sense? The business model is more natural, humanistic, and woven into the fabric of each community it serves. This is a fundamental shift in physician thinking. For those unfamiliar with healthcare the old method of a physician showing up to clinic and treating symptoms has moved at Fairview. The new model is more proactive, more holistic, thinking about the patient before arrival and in some cases before they have an appointment. They are even seeing patients online. Some of these things may sound normal to the rest of business, but to healthcare it is serious innovation. A paradigm shift in thinking.

It is not without it’s flaws, nothing is but anyone in healthcare has to applaud the effort and seriously great care results Fairview provides. Entrepreneurs (real ones), constantly push the envelope and are responsible for most innovation today. Large companies keep on the cutting edge by purchasing smaller entrepreneurial organizations. Fairview is a shining example of a larger organization innovating at impressive levels.

Other things that were very impressive: Fairview doctors are real doctors, and people. Most of the physicians I interviewed are involved in their community. They look at a rash when they see them in the grocery store (yes they know their patients well), they attend town hall meetings, and school sporting events. They care about the overall health of the community, not just turning clinic hours for a paycheck.

What was totally exciting: I interviewed physicians and providers who loved what they do so much it was contagious!

Impressed by: Lynne Peterson. This is one outstanding woman who should be running strategy for talent acquisition. She “gets” building a company! She is one of the very few people I know who understand that recruiting is not a process. This means, don’t try to match bodies to paper requisitions. Great people build great companies, bad matches hurt.

Large organizations usually miss how much capital someone as integral as Lynne has saved them, how many of their greatest physicians had a great impression of Fairview because her team is on top of it’s game. She knows the physicians she helped bring on and is excited about their life like these physicians are about Fairview patients, she totally understands and resonates the Fairview culture.

There is much more I could say about Fairview, Lynne and Minneapolis.. Maybe at a later date.

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Hibbing, Minnesota

I interviewed a physician in Hibbing Minnesota today for Fairview that used MD Pathways to look for a job 2 years ago. I asked, “two years ago, we didn’t have much on the site then did we?” She said we didn’t. But she went on to say that she really thought we were pursuing the right cause. Not for medicine but for companies in general. She said that its almost like the site has a authentic, soulful quality,Yes!

If read my blog you will learn my passion is to help organizations tap their purpose, meaning, and blow life into their message online. To help companies get their soul back.

When you find a great core message and the company begins to resonate it’s qualities, strategy and tactics become simple.

Yep, when you tap something at its core, you free it’s soul..

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Mike Griffin at Health East

Mike Griffin at Health East

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Video Trip Report – Health East St. Paul, MN

I just finished three days shooting employment and branding videos for The Health East healthcare system in St. Paul, Minnesota. Three days is really a perfect process to dig in, reflect, dig again, reflect and refine. Getting a deep understand of the unique attributes of a large organization, and the real spirit of how it works on a human level is fulfilling in more ways than I ever thought could be.

Believe it or not this is no easy task. The end of each day leaves me exhausted, reviewing videos and preparing questions for day 2 or 3. Yet when you watch the content, and see that the intended audience can’t stop watching the content you know you did something inspirational. You get a sense after each filming session too that people in the organization are saying, “I wasn’t expecting that”. I guess what is inspiring to everyone involved is the deeper learning and awareness that takes place. That will fill an empty battery, really quick.

Looking for threads that tie all the voices together and lead to the real gold in an organization is quite compelling work. This journey Started out to change recruitment and it seems we are answering a much bigger question. How can a brand come across as truly authentic, because when it comes to important stuff… People need an element of trust involved.

After the first day of filming I knew Health East was special. The intimacy of communication for a good-sized organization was impressive. Each interviewee could articulate patient centered care, and do so passionately. They knew the hows and whys of their great outcomes. They all seemed to know that by being responsible and leaning on each other meant the same thing somehow. They looked at the new and quickly changing healthcare landscape as a challenge instead of a burden. They seemed to genuinely care about each other.

Michael Griffin is the Director of Physician Services. When hospitals get to the point of adding a role for Chief Recruiting Officer this guy should be at the top of many lists. He cares about who he wants to hire. Understands how they will impact the organization, and has this incredible talent of leading reluctant providers to seeing and supporting the addition of another provider. Better yet he can vet out if one isn’t needed. People that get as far as Michael are competent and master the art of communicating. Michael is a star.

I will be posting out-takes from my video interview with him, heck I might post the whole video.. Its genuine, authentic, and oh yeah… Maybe a bit self serving, but I love the work so it shouldn’t jack up my karma to brag..:-)

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A little more human

The interesting things about humans.. We search for these moments we want to define us. But to take advantage of that moment it requires that we do something, maybe we aren’t comfortable doing. We know that thing is right, but something in us steps in the way. Maybe we are so comfortable in our surroundings we don’t have to make that leap. Or maybe fear of the unknown keeps us chained to mediocrity.

There is a simple truth. Follow your heart and live with integrity, it’s hard but it’s the only place you will find real freedom. I don’t know about changing the world, but my mission is to make it all a little more human and a little less idol. Come join the call. It’s liberating.

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4 Rules to the Science & Art of Bootstrapping

Back in 2008 I was part of the Austin Bootstrap Panel for SXSW and was compelled to write a blog about bootstrapping entrepreneurs as artists.. Steve Blank has a good explanation of this perspective in a video here.

Four years and 100 pivots later, I think this definition is incomplete. Entrepreneurs, especially those not following a “cookie cutter” model, must also be scientists. Looking at the history of the biggest scientific breakthroughs, many didn’t come from the lab. Einstein, Newton, Copernicus all made significant and practical contributions to humanity through observation and interaction.

Bootstrapping any venture has real rules to follow that require both art and science.

1. Your approach while inspired by human behavior and observed in real life must be backed by the science of economics.

2. You must develop a deeper methodological way of doing something (solving a duality).

3. You must package your solution in a way that penetrates the competitive marketplace and has something people value.

4. It must be distilled enough so that the story is clear, memorable and interesting enough to be passed on by others.

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Less is More

Its quite amazing how much one can get done by reduction. You never need the resources you think you do. The following are keys to running an incredibly efficient organization.

1. Do what you do best. Get someone to do better those things you don’t.

2. Stay face to face with your customers, roll up your sleeves and row the boat with them.

3. Always operate as if resources were scarce. No matter how much you have, they are.

4. Seek out feedback you know will probably sting, but only consider acting on it if it confirms intuition.

5. Interact. clients, shareholders, employees. They all put faith in you for something.

6. Be bold. When something works go hard.

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Loving all things Apple, why I may wait on iPad

Back in the stone ages when PC’s ruled the world, there really didn’t seem to be much of any new technology that made me want to run down the street and call myself early adaptor.

Since Steve returned to Apple, I have found my local Apple store upon several new offerings. Mostly because Apple solves problems with elegance. In fact everyone working in my company are required to use Apple, because Apple products are more productive. The newest offering from Apple, the iPad may have me holding off  joining the early surge headed to adopt.

#1 – The iPad is a duality problem for someone that wants to travel light and access data, the apps in the app store are not quite there (maybe soon).

#2 – No multi-tasking, it appears to work like the iPod touch, the same duality exists. I am not a gamer, can see where this would be a phenomenal tool for certain professions like Physicians, but I like my spreadsheets, browser, up.. I like that other Apple idea, Spaces.

#3 – No camera.. Hello?? iChat?? – ahhh Apple will attempt to force the iPhone 4

#4 – No flash. I don’t like flash either, but it is the medium of choice. The iMac integrated well into the PC world by allowing room for microsoft word, excel, and powerpoint, until I could get accustom to using Pages. Do the same thing here, run them off by putting your arm around them.

#5 – Better a year later. As much as I love all things Apple, We all seem to have been bitten by the corporate side of Apple. Every year proves a massive improvement we couldn’t live without.

I am looking forward to reading and journaling and eventually working off the iPad. Who knows that nasty serpent at the Apple store may seduce me into biting into Apples latest offering sooner than later, but I must say my first inclination is to hold off.

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